Do It Yourself Healthcare

I was sharing about one of my best lines of defense when the bugs are attacking - trusty capsicum and garlic! This isn't likely going to be for everyone -no way! If you don't like the smell of garlic or your spouse (and he or she isn't willing to take some themself) this may not be for you. I don't notice that pungent garlicky aroma when we both partake so if one of you is under attack, don't suffer, join 'em.

I don't know how many times I've chased off those ickies and avoided a breakdown and bedtime with fever, aching bones and general all around misery. Usually a couple, three good doses keeps me going and feeling good enough that if I'm not paying attention I forget to take any more and then the symptoms start returning.

Which basically means that I need to keep taking it after I feel so much better - an extra few doses to bring me all the way out of the woods.

I want to be sure you understand that everyone is so unique and that is the great challenge of healthcare and why it is so important that folks start paying attention to their own bodies and discover what works for them. Those discoveries are wonderfully rewarding.

Finding ways to fight for you own health without drugs could become more and more important as super bugs arise that antibiotics can't touch.

Health is a precious gift we easily take for granted until we lose it. Then depending on how badly we lose it, it takes center stage in all our thoughts and efforts to reclaim it.

I guess it has been those times of loss that birthed my keen interest in how to understand that precious gift and nurture it. I remember musing over how our culture hands over responsibility for education to schools and teachers and health to doctors and drug companies and coming to a decision that I wouldn't do that because I knew they couldn't possibly care as much about those aspects of my life as I did.

So, for the past quarter of a century, I've been learning and observing and have discovered some things that work very well for me - things that have saved me lots of money in down-time and I bet there are others out there who also could share things that have worked for them.

Right now I've been fighting some icky bug and a basic ingredient in my arsenal is Capsicum and Garlic. Red Delicious apples are ideal mediums to carry a slathering of peanut butter mixed with a clove or two or three if they're small and several shakes of Capsicum. You may need to start with one shake and work up to more but the peanut butter does an awesome job of quenching the flames of that firey herb.

Gotta go, so I'll talk more about that next time.